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To Sidestep Trump Tariffs, Asian Nations Seek New Trade Partners

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Most nations are still negotiating in hopes of avoiding punitive import taxes. At the same time, they’re looking for trading partners as a way around the United States.For most countries that received President Trump’s letters last week threatening steep tariffs, especially the Asian nations with economies focused on supplying the United States, there are no obvious substitutes as a destination for their goods.But they are doing their best to find them.Business and political leaders around the world have been roundly baffled by the White House’s imposition of new duties, even as governments shuttled envoys back and forth to Washington offering new purchases and pledges of reform. Mr. Trump is erecting new trade barriers and demanding deep concessions by Aug. 1, claiming years of grievance because America buys more than it sells.“Across the world, tools once used to generate growth are now wielded to pressure, isolate and contain,” Anwar Ibrahim, the prime minister of Malaysia, said at a gathering of Southeast Asian leaders on Wednesday. “As we navigate external pressures, we need to fortify our foundations. Trade among ourselves. Invest more in one another.”“As we navigate external pressures, we need to fortify our foundations,” Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim of Malaysia said on Wednesday. Vincent Thian/Associated PressThere are already a few signs of such efforts. South Korea’s new president, Lee Jae Myung, sent special envoys to Australia and Germany to discuss defense and trade issues, and plans on dispatching delegations to several others. Brazil and India announced plans to increase their bilateral trade by 70 percent, to $20 billion.Indonesia says it is nearing a treaty with the European Union that would drop most tariffs on both sides to zero. And in Vietnam, which Mr. Trump said had accepted 20 percent tariffs on its goods headed to the United States before last week’s letters, the deputy trade minister emphasized efforts to reduce her country’s reliance on American consumers by leveraging other trade agreements.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Tariffs or Deals? Trump Seems Content With Punishing Levies.

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    The president’s supporters portray him as a top dealmaker. But, at least for now, far more trading partners have gotten stiff tariffs than trade deals.Even after President Trump announced sweeping global tariffs in April, some investors and supporters comforted themselves by arguing that the president’s goal was still to open global markets, not close them off.The belief, promoted by Mr. Trump himself, was that he was using his tariffs as a lever to crack open foreign markets and the administration would soon deliver dozens of deals that would increase U.S. exports and help American businesses flourish abroad.Three months later, that optimism is being replaced by doubts that Mr. Trump’s goal was ever to strike the kind of trade deals that would open up markets. When Mr. Trump paused his global tariffs for 90 days in April, he said the delay would give his administration time to reach trade deals with countries across the world. In the intervening months, Mr. Trump boasted about how countries were lining up to talk to the United States and at one point claimed he had reached 200 deals.But the administration has only announced two preliminary deals, with Britain and Vietnam, and the status of the Vietnam deal is now in question. While handshake agreements with the European Union, India, Taiwan and other governments could soon be pending, they are likely to be limited pacts that leave much left to be negotiated. Even when deals have been announced, the administration has left double-digit tariffs in place, with the promise of more levies on foreign products on the way.This week, Mr. Trump sent out nearly two dozen letters notifying countries of the high tariff rates they will be charged as of Aug. 1 if they don’t sign trade deals. That included nations that were in active negotiations with the United States, like Indonesia, Canada, South Korea and Malaysia.With less than a month before the Aug. 1 tariffs kick in, the Trump administration may have the capacity to deal with only a fraction of those countries. Some governments that have sought out meetings with U.S. officials have not been able to schedule them.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Trump’s Seesawing on Tariffs Gives the World Whiplash

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    Blunt letters dictating terms posted to social media and changes late in negotiations have left trading partners wondering what President Trump will do next.Six months into his new administration, Mr. Trump’s assault on global trade has lost any semblance of organization or structure.He has changed deadlines suddenly. He has blown up negotiations at the 11th hour, often raising unexpected issues. He has tied his tariffs to complaints that have nothing to do with trade, like Brazil’s treatment of its former president, Jair Bolsonaro, or the flow of fentanyl from Canada.Talks with the United States were like “going through a labyrinth” and arriving “back to Square 1,” said Airlangga Hartarto, the Indonesian minister for economic affairs, who met with U.S. officials in Washington on Wednesday.The resulting uncertainty is preventing companies and countries from making plans as the rules of global commerce give way to a state of chaos.“We’re still far away from making real deals,” said Carsten Brzeski, global head of macroeconomics at the bank ING in Germany. He called the uncertainty “poison” for the global economy.Gone is the idea that the White House would strike 90 deals in 90 days after a period of rapid-fire negotiation, as Mr. Trump pledged in April. Instead, Washington has signed bare-bone agreements with big trading partners including China, while sending many other countries blunt and mostly standardized letters announcing hefty tariffs to start on Aug. 1.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

  • 125 Shares129 Views

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    What Is a Trade Deal? Trump Takes an Expansive View.

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    The president is deploying the word “deal” liberally, using the term to describe all kinds of trade arrangements, some very limited or one-sided.The Trump administration is seeking “deals” with countries around the globe, telling major trading partners that it is open for negotiations before higher tariffs kick in on Aug. 1.But what constitutes a trade deal these days has become a tricky question. For the president, a trade deal seems to be pretty much anything he wants it to be.While traditional trade deals run into the hundreds of pages and take years to negotiate, Mr. Trump and his advisers have been using the term to refer to much more limited arrangements. That includes the framework deal announced with Britain in May, which was only a few pages long and included many promises that still need to be negotiated.The president also used the “trade deal” term for the handshake agreement announced with Vietnam last week. In a post on Truth Social, he said it would be “a Great Deal of Cooperation between our two Countries” and bring some tariffs on Vietnamese products down to 20 percent. But since then, neither country has yet publicly released any text or fact sheets describing what has actually been agreed upon.The president has also recently taken to referring to the trade truce his officials made with China in June as a “trade deal,” even though the agreement constituted only an agreement by the two governments to roll back the tariffs and other retaliatory measures they had taken against each other in recent months. A trade deal typically makes changes to the rules of trade — but this truce just returned the relationship to the status quo.In a cabinet meeting at the White House on Tuesday, Mr. Trump also used the term “deal” to refer to one-sided arrangements that other countries had not consented to at all: the letters that he has been sending via his social media account informing governments of new tariff rates on their exports.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

  • 75 Shares179 Views

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    The Businessman Grateful for Trump’s Tariffs

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    Trump’s New Trade Threats Set Off Global Scramble to Avoid Tariffs

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    Many countries thought they were negotiating in good faith. The White House renewed its “reciprocal” tariff plan anyway, giving countries until Aug. 1 to make offers.Over the past three months, nations across the world tried to avoid new tariffs that would punish their economies by giving President Trump something he might want.Indonesia offered to buy $34 billion more in U.S. crops and fuels. Thailand proposed lowering many of its own trade barriers, and buying more U.S.-made planes. Japan was ready to buy more liquefied natural gas over the next two decades.But as Mr. Trump’s self-imposed July 9 deadline approached, those entreaties made little difference. The 14 letters he posted online on Monday, mostly aimed at countries in Asia, largely matched the rates set in April, before he backed off and gave dozens of countries 90 days to negotiate agreements that would satisfy the White House’s demand for more balanced trade.“We have had years to discuss our Trading Relationship with Thailand, and have concluded that we must move away from these long-term, and very persistent, Trade Deficits engendered by Thailand’s Tariff, and Non-Tariff, Policies and Trade Barriers,” Mr. Trump wrote, swapping out only each country’s name in otherwise virtually identical missives.That fresh volley has left countries large and small, nearly all of them longstanding allies of the United States, with profound questions about how to move forward with the world’s largest consumer economy when negotiations over trade conflicts are labored and deadlines are extended without warning.“Many in Asia are going to ask, ‘Is this how the U.S. treats its friends?’” said Manu Bhaskaran, chief executive of Centennial Asia Advisors, a research firm. “Will there be permanent damage to American standing and interests in Asia and elsewhere through these crude threats and unpleasant language?” More

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    Trump Says U.S. Has Reached Trade Deal With Vietnam

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    The president said he had agreed to initial trade terms with Vietnam, the second country to strike a limited deal after Mr. Trump threatened steep tariffs.President Trump said on Wednesday that the United States had reached a trade deal with Vietnam, one that would roll back some of the punishing tariffs he had issued on Vietnamese products in return for that nation’s agreeing to open its market to American goods.The preliminary deal will also indirectly affect China, an important trading partner of Vietnam.“It will be a Great Deal of Cooperation between our two Countries,” Mr. Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social announcing the deal.According to Mr. Trump, the deal imposes a 20 percent tariff on all imports from Vietnam and a 40 percent tariff on any “transshipping.”That provision is aimed at addressing Trump administration criticisms that countries like Vietnam have become a channel for Chinese manufacturers to bypass U.S. tariffs and funnel goods into the United States.Which products would fall under the higher tariff rate is unclear. It could refer to goods imported to the United States from Vietnam that actually originated in China. But it could also apply to Vietnamese products that use a certain amount of Chinese parts. The deal could include a lower tariff on goods that are made in Vietnam with fewer Chinese parts and materials, and a higher tariff rate for Vietnamese goods that contain many Chinese components.Howard Lutnick, the commerce secretary, wrote on X that “if another country sells their content through products exported by Vietnam to us — they’ll get hit with a 40 percent tariff.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    US and China Talk Trade as Fight Over Rare Earths Escalates

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    Officials from the world’s largest economies will try to strike a deal Tuesday to relax painful export restrictions that they have imposed on each other.If the United States and China have succeeded at one thing this year, it is finding each other’s pain points.An initial clash over tariffs has grown in recent months into a competition over which country can weaponize its control over the other’s supply chains.China has clamped down on global shipments of rare minerals that are essential to building cars, missiles and a host of electronic products. The United States has in turn paused shipments to China of chemicals, machinery and technology including software and components to produce nuclear power, airplanes and semiconductors. As the conflict has escalated in recent weeks, it has caused Ford Motor and other companies to suspend some of their operations.Both countries are now trying to find a way to defuse the situation. Top-ranking officials from the two sides are meeting on Tuesday for a second day of trade negotiations at Lancaster House in London, a historical site that has long been a stage for international treaties. They gathered just days after President Trump held a 90-minute phone call with Xi Jinping, the Chinese leader — the first time the two heads of state had spoken directly since Mr. Trump returned to office in January.The haste with which the negotiations were arranged reflects the severity of the measures that both countries have recently adopted. After Mr. Trump ratcheted up tariffs on China to a minimum of 145 percent in April, Beijing clamped down on exports of critical minerals and magnets, threatening to shut down operations by American manufacturers, defense contractors and others.U.S. and Chinese officials struck a temporary truce in a meeting in Geneva last month to roll back tariffs and, Trump administration officials believed, to restart a steady flow of rare earths to American companies. But shipments of the minerals, and the magnets made with them, remain infrequent and tightly controlled. In late May, Ford temporarily closed a factory in Chicago that makes its Explorer sport utility vehicle because of a lack of magnets.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More